Ghosts from the Past

by Sally Spedding

  “Correct.”

  “We hardly ever saw him, except when he took his dog out,” she added, staring at the tilting vehicle and its still-open driver’s door. “Always in a hurry, and lways parked up there, too.”

  “Dog?”

  “Barks all the time, A real nuisance,” said the man. “As for its owner, he never said a word to us.”

  He took her hand. Both wore wedding rings.

  “Don’t be scared now, Agathe. Probably got in with a bad lot. He certainly looked the sort with those army clothes and his hair.” He turned to me. “How was he killed?”

  “Can’t say, at this stage,” I bluffed, checking my watch. “Best you both stay indoors, but if you see anything or anyone acting suspiciously, please call the gendarmerie in Saint-Antoine. Meanwhile, anything you remember seeing and hearing so far this morning, however small, will help us find Robert Taillot’s killer.”

  I then eyed their neat domain in more detail. “Your front windows look on to this road.” I pointed further along. “Where does it lead?”

  “The damned agregate quarry, then the D117.” Her husband pointed down the road. “Planning for it and that dreadful concrete works up there, was applied for just after we built this bungalow for our retirement. Now it’s lorries back and fore especially at night. Don’t talk to us about the Notaire from Saint-Antoine. He set it all up. Godless, greedy crook. Perhaps why his son trained for the priesthood. To compensate.”

  I showed no reaction. I had to glean clues of my own, for the dead guy who’d helped me and Karen.

  “Did you notice him or anyone else going by this morning. Please think.”

  The woman spoke first. “A motorcyclist about an hour ago with another lorry after that, and then, yes, I remember. I’d come out to water these tubs about half an hour ago, when I noticed this other car...”

  My skin began to prickle. “Can you describe it?”

  “Midnight blue, and small, with a curved roof. As for the make, I don’t know one from the other, do I, Henri?”

  “It could have been a 2CV.”

  “Number plate?” I probed.

  “I wan’t wearing my glasses, and Henri was in the bathroom at the back. He takes his time getting ready, these days. Anyway, all I heard was it starting up and then passing by here to the main road.”

  “Starting up where?”

  “Near that big, green car.”

  “Did you see its driver?”

  She shook her head. “No, I’m sorry. It was going far too fast.”

  *

  With this couple’s names in my new notepad and the sun high overhead, an assorted fleet of official vehicles finally arrived and parked in front of the green Nissan.

  Once I’d been introduced, frisked and had confirmed that victim’s identity, the stout, workmanlike Capitaine Serrado ushered me to one side, while the younger, ginger-haired, Lieutenant Vollard together with two female para-medics and a forensics pair from Quillan, got busy.

  Serrado was close in age with the same army background as the deceased, and although caarrying extra weight, was by no means the ‘fat, sweating pig,’ Karen had described. He also possessed a neatly-trimmed moustache, was a family man with job security, helped by a holstered Beretta 92 semi-automatic strapped to his blue-trousered right calf. He used his radio phone to order a truck to remove the Nissan for forensic examination.

  “You were right about the chloroform,” be began, once his call was finished. “What a way to go.”

  “Why Robert Taillot?” was my first question.

  “Like I said last night, he’s had shady contacts and operated on the wrong side of the law since quitting the army in 1980.”

  As Serrado spoke, he took in the dead man’s unprepossessing villa connected by power lines to the village itself. An outhouse and small, overgrown garden whose pig-wire fencing had been left to corrode for at least half a century.

  Just then, that mid-morning sun suddenly withdrew its warmth, replaced by a brisk chill,

  “How exactly?”

  “Helping low-life disappear. Just what we need, hein? Why his phones will be checked as priority.”

  I recalled my first ever sight of Karen’s face at Les Pins. Anxious. Afraid. Perhaps with good reason.

  “When he phoned Les Pins earlier today about its security lights, he did sound odd. And I don’t mean merely tired.”

  “Whatever. We’ll be turning all the stones we can, including that choir he’d be longed to, and,” with a knowing glance in my direction, “his relationship with our secretive Dr. Fürst.”

  “She certainly depended on him for her security. Especially since her cook, Joel Dutroux’s disappearance.”

  “We’ll soon see about that, too. Shocking news, mind. He may still have been conscious while being hacked up. Maybe knew his killer who could have sat with him beforehand, fixing up some deal.”

  He glanced at his watch.” Estimated time of death, an hour ago at most.”

  While I’d been at that Café Columbine…

  “Incidentally,” I ventured. “Could he have been gay?”

  “Nothing suggests that.” He then turned to me. “Thank you for your co-operation, Monsieur Lyon, but from now on, and for your own good, please stay out of this.”

  Monsieur again. Why did that mundane title still irk me so much?

  Get a grip.

  The Capitaine checked his watch again.

  “We must now secure this site and ask around.”

  “That couple down there have already been useful. Best speak to them.”

  He stared at the little bungalow’s occupants by their gate, still hand in hand, transfixed. Also, at several other locals who’d gathered nearer the main road.

  “I will. And I’ll be seeing you shortly at Les Pins,” he added unexpectedly. “Time we all had a chat.”

  My stomach shrank. Karen’s worst nightmare…

  I suddenly felt a yearning for the job I’d once had. Here, despite the grudging thanks, I was an inconvenience, yet relieved my Volvo and its boot hadn’t been gone over. Tense too, because Robert Taillot had known all her alarm codes. Was that what his butcher had wanted? Iinformation on those enquiries I’d asked him to make? After all, there’d been no sign of those birth and marriage certificate copies in the main body of his car. And then, as that half-hidden sun passed behind a giant, black cypress, I asked myself if it was possible he’d done more for Karen than I’d so far been aware of?

  Chapter 45. John.

  Robert Taillot’s mutilated body, zipped inside a black, vinyl bag, was lifted into the biggest of the blue Renault vans that had arrived, and its rear doors then banged shut. Then came news that so far, neither any weapon, wallet nor cash had been found on him, or in the house where his office had also been ransacked. No files or notebooks either, and certainly no personal data, although a new computer was still switched on, showing a half-finished invoice for Dr. Karen Fürst. No time given.

  Damn…

  Capitaine Serrado was helping to load labelled samples bags into another of the vans, when the breakdown truck finally arrived. Once it had lifted the covered-up Nissan from the roadside and borne it away with an unmarked car in attendance, I asked if there’d been any sign of a guard dog.

  “An alsation, in the kitchen, bleeding from his mouth. “Been viciously kicked, poor creature. That wasn’t necessary. He’s going to the nearest vet now, but it’s not looking good.”

  The last bag was in. Serrado closed the van’s rear doors. Checked they were locked.

  “Perhaps Taillot was on something,” I ventured.

  “Toxicology tests will soon show whether drugs have played a part. Our Chef d’Escadron only wants good news. What keeps him young.”

  Karen had been on her own for too long. I had to get back but noticed that same elderly couple were still in place.

  “They’re Agathe and Henri Grandier,” I told him. “She said she’d heard a car staring up by Monsieur Taillot’s house
then described what could have been a midnight blue 2CV speeding past their home towards the main road.”

  “When?”

  “Today, at approximately eleven hundred hours.”

  “Lieutenant Vollard will deal with them. As for me, no time like the present.”

  What did he mean?

  “Like I said, I’m coing back with you to Les Pins.”

  *

  He kept his distance behind my Volvo, sometimes hitting the verge while issuing orders on his radio. Soon, those all-too familiar gates came into view.

  Tense and dry-mouthed, also wondering if he yet knew about Herman and Martine, I braked then baled out. Serrado caught up with me, placing a firm hand on my shoulder.

  “Phone line’s dead here,” he said, glancing up at the nearest tower through the wrought iron panels. “Tried calling four times.”

  No...

  I imagined Karen strapped down in her bed, a needle stuck in her basilic vein. Her head half off - her attacker interrupted - and all in a lake of blood...

  Why wasn’t she at her window?

  “I’ll sound my horn,” I said.

  “Best not.”

  “Hide our cars, then?”

  “Waste of time, and we don’t even think of going in. Not yet.”

  “Dr. Fürst could be in danger.”

  “You mean Liesbet Ryjkel?”

  If that makes you feel better...

  “And too much of a coward to use that name. Dr.Karen Fürst, my arse,” he snorted. “So, I’m Tintin. Look, Monsieur, she needs to answer some questions.”

  Keep cool, I reminded myself. He has to be top dog.

  “She should never have come back here, given her condition,” Serrado continued, his pale, blue eyes following mine to that round window on the third floor. “I phoned her on Friday to say we’d be making a security check on our vulnerable

  residents every month. Was she grateful? Not on your life. And getting you so involved in her affairs that you had to turn to bad apple Taillot for help, wasn’t very clever either. By the way, just had a call. He’d kept records of calls between you both. Now there’s a tricky situation.”

  Shit.

  Joel, and the rest…

  “And the fact that some influential people here have complained about your probing on Liesbet Ryjkel’s behalf. Not least our Notaire and his son, the priest.” He pointed again at the main tower, while I told myself not to mention my recent attack. “I’m guessing someone’s been after her hide from the word go.”

  “Since her childhood?”

  “Why else change her name and cosy up to the man who for five thousand euros, could make someone vanish?”

  Serrado was a bigot. Probably a jealous bigot at that. But I needed him. Warts and all.

  Karen, where are you?

  “Did Taillot have any relatives?”

  “None we know of. And by the way, I’ve also just heard from the vet that the dog’s died.”

  It gets worse.

  “How long had Taillot lived there?”

  “A year at most. Originally from Albi. Previous occupant who sold up and emigrated to Sydney, was a far-right fanatic. We found a stack of racist material tucked away.”

  I took a guess. “Sanctum”

  He gave me an odd look.

  “Popular publication, by all accounts.”

  *

  The morning’s short-lived sunlight had faded, and a deepening chill seemed to envelope us. Pines and poplars were suddenly too close together, too black. Les Pins’ gates keeping us out, too high. Serrado called for back-up, and during the agonising wait that followed, I recounted Karen’s life-changing fall from her horse in 1969. How I’d seen photographs of the tragedy but felt excluded from too much of her puzzling story.

  “Is there some motivated forgetting going on here? Selective repression?” I suggested.

  “It happens. Be useful to discover if she ever had a CT scan to check for nerve damage.”

  “She did, and everything was in order.”

  “Easily said.”

  Not her number one fan.

  “Think about it,” Serrado scoured the rest of our surroundings with far better binoculars than mine. “Little Miss Holland herself finds the drop meant for the Resistance, hein?”

  I stared at him.

  “An eight-year-old?”

  “Why not?”

  Again, I let it go. But not for long.

  “I must interrupt here, Capitaine. That drop whether it landed or not, wasn’t for good, but evil.”

  His significant eyebrows rose a notch.

  “What evil?”

  “L’Enfer de Dansac. I’ll fill you in once we’ve found Dr. Fürst. Plenty know

  about it, but few speak out. Even after all these years.”

  A dismissive shake of his head.

  “Whatever that money was for,” he gestured towards the estate, “how could her lifestyle here be afforded? I’ve also heard a whisper there’s a car tucked away somewhere, in case she recovers enough to drive again.”

  Liar.

  She’d not have held out on me to that extent. Nor let me take such risks for her if she had after all, been able to drive.

  “I think I’d have noticed one by now.”

  “Not her staff?”

  Thank God two cars racing each other sped by, hooting continuously.

  “Idiots,” he muutered before I changed the subject. How long for would be the problem.

  “ As for Les Pins, remember, she became a well-paid Medical Emergency consultant in Rotterdam, even while disabled, and yes, she could well have benefited from her mother’s Will. You suggested as much yourself.”

  “Ha. First thing this morning, we found out her mother left nothing. But that still begs the question how her daughter bought outright a nice house in Dulwitch - is that how you call it? - while still a medical student? Never mind paying for expensive stabling for that horse during her first job.”

  “You’ve done your homework.”

  Just then, Serrado signaled to a gendarmerie van approaching towards us and soon two armed, plain-clothed guys were cutting their way through Les Pins’ double gates, sending sparks flying. They, and two gedarmes then swarmed up Karen’s curved drive, weaving in and out of the gloomy vegetation. If the alarm didn’t come on, then something was seriously wrong.

  “My suitcase is still in my room there,” I snapped, thinking of those few souvenirs it contained from Nottingham and Herman’s note together the Ben Porat poem.

  “We’ll drop it off in Elne for you. We know your sister’s address.”

  How come?

  No longer a cop, I was just a misguided rubberneck. Every new morning spelt out that same message.

  “Best you get along to see her,” added Serrado. “And stay out of trouble.”

  “No way. I’ve come so far...”

  “And no further, should our favourite neighbourhood family slip through our

  fingers as they’ve done time and time again.”

  Was I hearing things? No. That was a major turn-up.

  “You mean, the Suzmans?”

  “Correct.”

  “It took me just two minutes to report my recent encounter with Michel Suzman and the attack by possibly Paul and the saintly Jules. The thefts of my borrowed S&W 45 and a Walther plus a trunk of children’s clothes and toys from that other tower.

  “You should have reported all this, Monsieur. Could be just the start.”

  Chapter 46. John.

  Both armed strangers had forced their way into the first tower, with no sound of any alarm going off. Their din brought a rush of panic

  ‘Better hand them in or you’ll get done...’

  Taillot’s last words hammered my conscience. All I could think was that I owed him. And Joel. I set off towards my Volvo with Serrado shouting after me.

  “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “Got something for you.” With that, I disabled the car’
s alarm, opened its boot

  and, having already hidden my camera and railway relics under my old tartan rug, pulled out the Champion carrier bag. “I think Michel Suzman fancied this as well,” I pointed to the boot’s lock. “See the scratches? Done during my trip to Pamiers.”

  “We’ll get this all checked over,” Serrado took a brief look, obviously distracted by the noise coming from inside the tower. “Have you taken care with your own prints since then?”

  No. I bloody well hadn’t.

  *

  “Hiding that possible evidence wasn’t very clever,” grumbled Serrado, re-organising the items into plastic zip-ups in his unmarked car. “But better late than never, and that will be taken into consideration.”

  I didn’t reply. Any relief that finally the burden of Joel’s wrapped-up finger,

  both typewritten scraps of poison, the black Homburg, and parcel tape had passed from my shoulders, was nothing to what I still withheld. And, for a split second, I was tempted to spill about Martine. About Herman. How I’d seen his chopped-up body in the river. Connived in hiding his head.

  However, the consequences of doing this, lurked like a massive, menacing shadow, growing bigger every second as we turned to face the tower and its ominously empty windows.

  Like a kid forced to hand in a forbidden weapon at school, there was no way I could tell Serrado. Nor part with those two, heavy lumps of oxidised iron. I thought of the creep who’d manufactured them, and the woman who, years ago, must have known their purpose. All in good time, I told myself, hoping it might come soon.

  “What’s the name of Ricard Suzman’s wife?” I quizzed, to forestall any more probing about Karen’s domestic arrangements. Meaning, her nurse and her gardener. “No idea. His first one died back in the 60’s. And now,” he announced. “We’re going in.”

  *

  This waiting was worse than vertigo. I’d never felt so helpless. Even the Bayrou

  river coursing over its rocks couldn’t drown the din of continued forced entry. Nails banging into coffins came to mind and, because I’d become more like Karen over the past few days, asked myself how much this relative stranger could be trusted with the truth I was still concealing?

  “Do the words, Opération Anges or Association des Enfants Juives mean